The most famous and influential blues singer of the 1920s had been performing professionally for more than a decade when in 1923 she recorded "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Down Hearted Blues"—and without any special promotion from Columbia, she sold a staggering 750,000 copies. Dubbed the "Empress of the Blues," Smith was an inspiration to legions of singers, including Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, Cassandra Wilson, and Janis Joplin, who claimed that "No one ever hit me so hard…. Bessie made me want to sing." Smith is heard here with some of the finest jazz players of the era, including trumpeters Louis Armstrong and Joe Smith, pianists James P. Johnson and Fletcher Henderson, trombonists Jack Teagarden and Charlie Green, and clarinetist Benny Goodman, and among the set's highlights are "Gimme a Pigfoot," "Backwater Blues," "I Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl," "Empty Bed Blues," "Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do," and "After You've Gone." Also memorable are her own compositions, including "Back Water Blues" (written after witnessing the devastation of a flood) and "Poor Man's Blues" (lambasting the differences between the haves and have-nots in 1920s America).